COPELAND council bosses have expressed concerns over Government proposals to hike up electricity bills to fund large-scale future nuclear projects.

The funding model is intended to make it easier to attract investment from the private sector following the high-profile collapse of region’s Moorside project.

The plans, now in the consultation phase, would see an economic regulator granting a licence to charge a regulated price to use the electricity that would be generated by a plant.

But councillors said this could see taxpayers or ratepayers stumping up the cash for a new nuclear power station up to 15 years before it is built – and which, it was feared, might never be built.

Steve Smith, the council’s nuclear programmes and project manager, asked the Strategic Nuclear and Energy Board to “support the principles” of the Government developing a new funding model.

But councillors on the panel felt they needed more information before they endorsed the recommendation, raising numerous concerns.

Chairman of the panel Steven Morgan said he needed to know about the implications for the constituents of Copeland.

He said: “One of the proposals is that the cost that is incurred during the construction goes into the rates, so you are paying for it long before it returns any electricity.

“This does reduce the financing cost and therefore reduces what you have to pay in the long-run but in the near term you are paying for plants that haven’t been built yet and may never be built.

“My only concern is, if you are asking us to sign a letter that essentially endorses a substantial increase in our electricity rates to pay for new nuclear power then that’s not something we should sleepwalk into.”

The recommendation was to delegate the approval of a consultation response to the Government’s funding plan to the council’s chief executive Pat Graham and nuclear portfolio-holder coun David Moore.

Mr Smith denied this meant he was asking the panel to endorse the Government’s funding model.

He said: “I’m proposing that we interrogate the RAB funding model in more detail and see whether it does say what it’s going to do on the tin, which is attract private capital finance for nuclear projects.”

Councillor David Banks likened the Government plans to the controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI) – a deal that sees private investors build, finance and manage infrastructure projects which are then leased by the state, typically on 30-year contracts.

“PFI at the time was the big thing and we were encouraged to sign up to it and patently now we didn’t understand the full ramifications,” he added.

Coun Morgan suggested the future of nuclear in Copeland might lie in the form of small modular reactors rather than large-scale newbuild like Hinkley Point.

He said: “One of the big advantages of SMRs is you can do it in two years.

“They are fabricated in a factory. They don’t have the financing costs and you don’t also build capacity beyond your demand.”

The panel agreed to discuss their position ahead of the consultation feedback deadline in October.